


Blue Suits and Socks

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coda, Emotions, Episode Related, Feelings, Kissing, M/M, S8E10, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 22:24:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13350747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: There was one other vision of the future Danny had on that table in quarantine. One he doesn’t tell Steve about. Well, not intentionally....





	Blue Suits and Socks

**Author's Note:**

> _You knew I was gonna go there........._
> 
> Oh, god. That episode. There are fourteen stories I could write about it, but this was the one I couldn’t resist.

Danny’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. Sleeping, but fitfully. Mumbling, still, snatches of visions—his end of conversations with their future selves. Steve had stayed, long after visiting hours were officially over. One nurse looked for a moment like she might tell him he needed to leave, but another—who knew Steve and Danny from the liver incident—had pulled her back. So he’d sat, by Danny’s bed, needing to be next to him, not able to leave his side, and not completely unwilling to admit to himself why.

The whole “let’s retire before we get killed” thing was really gaining momentum in Steve’s head. Because he’d frankly had just about enough of this almost-losing-Danny thing. He wasn’t really sure he could make it through that again. Wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He’d been about to drift off himself, awkwardly splayed in the not-as-comfortable-as-one-might-hope recliner at the side of the bed, when Danny’d begun another round of mumbling. Steve caught the words “tux” and “waiter” and then clearly: “not on my wedding day.” He gasped, as he felt that directly in his heart, and he leaned in closer. Danny was reaching out, restless, seeking. “Come here you goof,” he muttered. “Hold my hand.” And his hand crawled across the bedding until it met Steve’s, which he’d had resting by Danny’s arm, not touching, but needing to be close. The contact, which Steve had worried might wake Danny, instead seemed to focus him in his hallucination. He took a breath like he was working up for one of his speeches, and sure enough....

“I love you, and I’m thrilled you’ve finally agreed to marry me, but I am not standing next to James Bond in my wedding photos. You will wear the blue suit like we agreed, and we will both look lovely and you will, for once in your life, Steven, not argue with me, okay? Tomorrow you can go back to ruling my life like you always do, but just this once, babe, I win.”

The world stopped. Steve felt like he was falling... drifting... floating... out of his body, out of the room, like he could see Danny, not as he was, on the bed, with monitors and drip lines and bandages, but tan and glowing and dapper, dressed in his best suit, holding Steve’s hand. _On their wedding day_. He looked down at their hands, on the hospital bed, Danny’s pale and dry and cold resting lightly in his own tan and too-warm hand. He wanted to squeeze it, wanted to make it look less deathly, less a reminder, a threat, a symbol, of all he could so easily have lost.

Danny began drifting back to normal sleep, muttering. Steve tried to listen, but he wasn’t sure he could have heard anything after what Danny’d just said. Once he was sure Danny was deeply asleep, he tightened his hold on Danny’s hand just slightly, curled up against the arm of the chair, and whispered, almost under his breath “I love you too, Danny.” He didn’t sleep much, and when he did, it was to dreams about weddings and honeymoons and matching towels and new sheets.

Once, when he woke in the night, he thought for a moment Danny’d been awake and watching him, but when he lifted his head to look more closely, Danny’s eyes were closed, his jaw slack with sleep. After checking the monitors as best he could without getting up, Steve drifted off again, contented that Danny’s hand felt warmer in his.

The next time he woke, Danny was alert, and watching him with drugged but intense eyes. His hold on Steve’s hand had tightened, and when Steve looked down, Danny didn’t let go, didn’t pull back, like Steve had thought he might, but instead gave a weak squeeze.

“You didn’t have to stay, babe.”

Steve closed his eyes and shook his head once. “Yeah I did, Danny.” When he opened his eyes and looked down at their hands again, he had to suppress the urge to bring Danny’s hand to his lips and kiss it. He shuddered slightly.

“Hey, it’s okay, babe, you did it, you saved me, I’m still here.”

He’d put on a brave show before, Steve had, of not being afraid, not being affected. But the sleep, the wearing off of the adrenaline, the setting in of the exhaustion, and Danny’s sleep and drug addled mutterings were getting to Steve in ways he was not at all prepared for. Maybe it was because they were alone, maybe it was because he was getting too old for this, but he just couldn’t fit himself back into that role, the brave commander, the unaffected leader.

“I can’t lose you, Danny. Not now. Not when we still have so much to do.”

Danny’s lips crept into a crooked grin. “Getting excited for the restaurant, aren’t you, babe? You liked that picture I painted of what it’ll be like, I knew you would.”

Steve huffed in amusement. “Yeah, buddy, I did. But there was another one I liked even more.”

“Oh, yeah? Which one? Charlie’s graduation?”

“No, though that was lovely.”

Danny thought for a moment. “Grace’s wedding?”

“Again, no.” He took a breath. “But closer.”

Instantly Danny stilled. “I didn’t....” He swallowed, looked anxiously at Steve. “I didn’t tell you about....”

“No,” Steve said slowly. “You didn’t.”

“So, how...?” His eyes went wide. “Oh, god. Did I talk in my sleep? Is that why you stayed? To see if I’d confess more?” He tried to pull his hand away, but Steve caught it.

“Daniel. Shut up right now. Please.” That urge he’d managed to suppress before was irresistible now, and he bent his head over their hands, pressing a light kiss to Danny’s fingers. To them, he whispered: “I’m glad you did. I’m glad I didn’t miss that.... I would have hated to have not heard, to not have known....” He looked up at Danny, whose mouth had fallen open, whose eyes were looking as raw and glistening as Steve’s felt. He straightened up. “Would you have told me? Ever?”

“I don’t...” He sighed. “I don’t know, babe.” His head fell back on the pillow, he looked flushed but still pale somehow. “It was so _real_. All of it, all of them were so real, so vivid. But that one. That one.... I felt it. In my heart, you know? It felt so _right_.” Danny was looking at Steve so openly, his heart stuttered.

“I don’t have a blue suit,” Steve finally managed to say. It was all he could think of.

“Yeah, well, maybe we should do something about that,” Danny replied, amused.

“Maybe there are some other things we should do something about, too,” Steve offered. The blood was rushing in his ears, he felt giddy and grounded at the same time.

“Fair point,” Danny conceded, sounding as giddy as Steve felt. “There is one thing I’m really anxious to know.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that.”

“Are you really that good a kisser?”

Everything stopped again. For one wild moment, Steve thought about showing Danny just what he thought of that, right then and there. But of course the nurse picked that moment to come check on her patient.

“I guess that will have to wait, Danno,” Steve whispered as he got up to give the nurse some room.

“Just don’t wait too long, babe,” Danny called as Steve stepped back. “I’d hate to miss out any longer than necessary, if it really is that good....”

Chuckling softly, Steve suggested Danny’d better pay attention to what the nurse told him to do, so he could heal fast and find out for himself.

The nurse commented that Danny looked a lot less pale, which was a good sign, and Steve had the decency to blush at that, bit his lip and tried to be serious and listen to Danny’s prognosis.

When she left, Steve let the grin return, felt the giddy feeling flood his veins again. He perched carefully on the side of the bed.

“You sure you’re not just high from the drugs, buddy?”

“Thanks to you, babe, I know what that feels like, all too well, so, yeah, I am sure. What about you?”

“I’m pretty sure I was sure from the moment you hit the floor, Danny.”

Danny sucked in a sharp breath, and Steve knew he was remembering his own versions of that moment. They’d had more than enough of them over the years. “Yeah, we really should stop doing that to each other.”

“Yes, we should.” Steve reached for Danny’s hand again, held it in both of his.

“I think,” Danny whispered, conspiratorially. “That if you’re very careful, you could probably lean over here and kiss me... before I go completely insane.”

Steve swallowed his grin, nerves prickling all over his skin. “Yeah. I think probably that’s a good idea.”

And he did. And Danny said it was even better in real life. And that Steve really should get a blue suit. And some really fantastic socks. Steve agreed to all of it, unhesitatingly, and kissed Danny again. And again... and again. Until the nurse came in and told them they’d better cool it for a bit if they didn’t want Danny’s alarms to go off.

They blushed, but they managed to hold themselves back. And then Steve decided he didn’t want to wait for a first date any longer, and he made some calls, and they wound up with twinkly lights strung up in Danny’s room, containers of take out from Kamekona (where else would their first date be, anyway), and ginger ale in paper cups.

“It’s not exactly what I would have chosen, Danny, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Oh yeah, babe? What would you have chosen for our first date, because it seems to me that one of us in a hospital bed was kind of how it was only ever going to be....”

His tone was snarky, but his eyes were twinkling, and Steve felt goaded into coming up with something truly romantic. All he could think of was wanting to be at home, in their chairs on the beach, drinking Longboards, and watching the sunset. So that’s what he told Danny, and when it made his eyes water, Steve had to get up and kiss the tears away. He pulled back when he was done, but Danny’s hand was on his head, holding him close.

“Do me a favor, will ya?”

“Anything, buddy, anything.”

“Let your goddamn hair grow out please. I need something more to hold on to.”

Steve blushed and laughed, and nodded, and kissed Danny and knew, just knew, that everything was going to be okay.


End file.
